Summer Courses 2021

Cursuri în limba română aici

All the courses below will be conducted in English (or Latin, for the beginners and lower intermediate Latin courses). For registration for any of the courses below, please send a cover letter and a CV to ccesiofh@gmail.com. The fee for each of the language courses below is 150 Euros (+ bank transfer fees).
Registration deadline: May 16.

Coptic

Beginners – July 12 – August 6

Dan Slușanschi School of Classical and Oriental Languages offers this year an intensive summer course in Sahidic Coptic. Coptic is the last phase of Egyptian and a key witness of Early Christian spirituality since it covered a very important and, until recently, a rather neglected cultural area. A very rich literature of various interest is, unlike other ancient literary traditions, still awaiting its cartographers: Gnostic, Manichaean, Christian works (both original and translations from other traditions) make of Coptic an unavoidable landmark for all those interested in the study of religion.

Coptic is also a very important Oriental language whose study provides those interested in linguistics with the absolute satisfaction that only an isolated language of old cultural tradition and spectacular evolution can give. For those coming from Egyptology, Coptic is the last movement of the dragon, for those coming from Indo-European languages, Coptic is an unbelievable journey into a peculiar linguistic system, and for all interested in learning Coptic it is a unique experience of an easy, yet complex language.

There are no prerequisites for enrolling in the course. In twenty days of intensive study, students will start from ground zero and will be initiated in all aspects of the Coptic grammar. One hour of theory will be followed by one hour of exercises so that, by the end of the course, students will be able to read original texts of medium difficulty. The main method followed will be Bentley Layton’s Sahidic Coptic in Twenty Lessons. The instructors of the course are: Alin Suciu Ph.D., senior researcher at the Science Academy of Göttingen, one of the most important personalities of Coptic Studies worldwide, and Ștefan Colceriu Ph. D., researcher at the Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti Institute for Linguistics, Romanian Academy, editor and translator into Romanian of the Coptic Paterikon.

The course will be held 5 days a week for four weeks, with 2 hours of instruction per day, for a total of 40 course hours.

The final hours of the course will be decided together with all participants and the instructor, once the enrolment period is over, depending on the time zones of the instructors and the participants. Nevertheless, please mind that for this course the starting hours will be no later than 15.00 hours GMT+3.

Biblical Hebrew

Lower Intermediate – June 14 – July 9

In twenty daily meetings, each comprising of two hours of course, participants will develop their lexical knowledge and will begin to apprehend the syntax. In parallel, morphology learned in the grammar survey of the previous stage will be revised with further explanation. The course will focus on acquaintance with the biblical text, through extensive reading from the narrative books (story of Joseph, 1-2 Samuel, Jonah, Ruth), with some excerpts from Hebrew poetry (Psalms).

The course will be held 5 days a week for four weeks, with 2 hours of instruction per day, for a total of 40 course hours. The final hours of the course will be decided together with all participants and the instructor, once the enrolment period is over, so that it may accommodate all participants.

Old-Slavonic

Intermediate – July 19 – July 30

This course is designed for those who have mastered the fundamentals of Old Slavonic and wish to become familiar with the particularities of the five main Slavonic recensions: Czecho-Moravian, Serbo-Croatian, Middle Bulgarian, Russo-Ukrainian and Romanian. This intensive course will have two main components: first, it will provide a description of the changes that took place in each recension compared to Old Slavonic, with great attention being given to phonetics and morphology, so as to aid the students to adapt to the relative lack of dedicated dictionaries for each variety of Church Slavonic and to make use of classical Old Slavonic dictionaries in their endeavours. On the other hand, this theoretical element will be balanced out by a practical side, as the students will be given the chance to work on a selection of texts from each recension, which will allow them to apply their newly acquired skills. While some of these texts will be from the various transcriptions of religious texts (which allow for better comparisons), many will be from medieval historical sources and documents, which better illustrate some of the local traits of the recensions.

The course will be held 5 days a week, for two weeks, with 4 instruction hours per day, for a total of 40 course hours. The final hours of the course will be decided together with all participants and the instructor, once the enrolment period is over, so that it may accommodate the time zones of all participants.

Latin

Beginners – June 28 – July 9

The present course is designed for beginners, though previous knowledge of the language is welcomed. It is based on the direct method of Hans Orberg, developed in his textbook – Familia Romana. The direct method implies that Latin will be the language used at the course almost exclusively, ensuring a complete immersion in the Latin language and realities. The purpose of the lessons is to cover the very basic level of Latin – the five declinations of the Latin noun and pronoun and indicative and imperative of the verb in the present tense. The lessons will also cover singular and plural number; interrogative particles; enclitic particles; present indicative; personal, interrogative, demonstrative, and relative pronouns; interrogative sentences; imperative; prepositions; locative; active and passive voice; declinations; the roman calendar; modal verbs etc. The course comprises of ten four hours long meetings, for a total of forty instruction hours.

Latin

Lower-intermediate – July 12 – July 23

The Latin course is designed for students who have already gone through the pre-intermediate course which includes all five declensions in Latin, the constructions Accusativus cum infinitivo, Ablativus absolutus, Nominativus cum infinitivo, and most of the pronouns, as well as most forms of the present base of the verb except Coniunctivus. The intermediate course continues with past base of the verb, covering all the verb forms in Indicativus, Imperativus, Infinitivus, Participium and makes introduction in Coniunctivus. Students will be familiarized with extensive vocabulary, fixed expressions, compound verbs, synonymous ways of expressing different grammatical and stylistic structures. After this course, some easier original texts will be accessible with the help of the dictionary. The course comprises of ten four hours long meetings, for a total of forty instruction hours.

Latin

Upper-Intermediate – June 21 – July 02

The course is designed for those who master Latin verb conjugation in all its tenses and moods, nouns, adjectives, numerals and pronouns, relative and temporal clauses, and have a consistent knowledge of Latin fundamental vocabulary. The course will consolidate existing notions of Latin grammar and will also introduce participants to various clauses in Latin syntax and vocabulary, and also to the particulars of various genres, by reading texts by Cicero, Sallust, Cornelius Nepos, Seneca, Suetonius, Vergil and St. Jerome. By the end of the course students should be able to read Latin texts of increased difficulty.

Ancient Greek

Beginners – June 14 – June 25

The course is designed for absolute beginners, though a pre-existing knowledge of the alphabet is strongly encouraged, in order to best absorb the curriculum material at the swiftest possible rate. Greek accent, noun and adjective declension, verb conjugation for indicative present, as well as an introduction to the syntactic values of the cases and the fundamental vocabulary of ancient Greek will be covered. Short and simple sentences by Menander, Esopus or Xenophon will be read during the course, so that by the end of the course students should be able to tackle simple sentences or phrases in Greek.

Ancient Greek

Lower-Intermediate – July 12 – July 23

The course is designed for those who master Greek accentuation, noun and adjective declension and verb conjugation in indicative present and a basic Greek vocabulary. The course will introduce students to Greek verb conjugation in indicative imperfect and the aorist, irregular verbs, degrees of comparison of the adjective, infinitive and participle aorist, as well as syntactic elements. Short texts by Menander, Longus, Dio Cassius, Esopus or Plutarch will be read during the course, so that by the end of the course students should be able to tackle simple texts in Greek.

Ancient Greek

Intermediate – June 21 – July 2

The course is designed for those who master Greek verb conjugation in indicative imperfect and the aorist, degrees of comparison of the adjective, infinitive and participle aorist, as well as participial and infinitive clauses. The course will introduce students to perfect and future tenses, personal pronouns, possessive adjectives, relative pronouns and relative clauses, the conditional clause and the subjunctive mood of the verb. Vocabulary will be further built upon by reading accessible texts by Plato, Aesop, Xenophon, Lucian and fragments from the Gospels. By the end of the course students should be able to read Greek texts of mild difficulty.

Ancient Greek

Upper-Intermediate – July 05 – July 16

The course is designed for those who master Greek verb conjugation in perfect and future tenses, as well personal and relative pronouns, relative and conditional clauses and have a consistent knowledge of Greek fundamental vocabulary. The course will consolidate existing notions of Greek grammar and will also introduce students to irregular verbs, especially irregular forms of the perfect and the aorist, the optative and imperative mood of the verb, and the pluperfect tense. Various clauses in Greek syntax and vocabulary will be further introduced by reading texts by Plato, Aesop, Lucian and Strabo. By the end of the course students should be able to read Greek texts of medium difficulty.

Ancient Greek

Advanced – June 28 – July 9

The course is designed for those who have functionally assimilated Greek morphology and syntax and have a rich, consolidated Greek vocabulary (i.e., to the level of what methods like Reading Greek or Hermaion-Discovering Greek Step by Step cover in terms of morphology, syntax, and vocabulary). In the two weeks of the course students will read through the ninth book of Homer’s Odyssey, as well as texts in classical and classicising Greek so as two experience several forms of expression of the ancient Greek language. The course will focus on the lexical (etymologies, lexical families etc) and syntactical complexities of the texts, as well as on poetic syntax, style, and rhetoric. Participants are expected to dedicate 2 hours of daily individual work in preparing the fragments that would be discussed the following course day. By the end of the course, participants will have improved their ability to read difficult Greek texts, from a variety of genres.

Meet our team

Stefan Colceriu studied Classics and is a researcher at the Institute of Linguistics of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest. As a Ph.D. student he benefitted from the scholarship of the Swiss Confederation and that of the New Europe College, Institute of Advanced Study (NEC Bucharest). During his stays at the University of Leuven, Fribourg, Leiden and Zürich he specialized in late ancient thought and early Christianity. He was a member of the Septuagint translation project at New Europe College, Bucharest, a co-founder of the first non-confessional M.A. program of Religious Studies at the University of Bucharest, and the organizer of the focus groups for Biblical Hebrew and Coptic at NEC. Colceriu teaches Ancient Greek, Greek history and civilization, and history of Romanian at the Faculty of Catholic Theology in Bucharest. Stefan is highly interested in Homer, archaic/classical Greek poetry, and Thucydides.

Mircea Gratian Dulus graduated from Classical Philology and History and Archaeology. He holds an MA in Ancient Christianity at the University of Naples L’ ‘Orientale’ and a master degree in Medieval Studies from Central European University, Budapest. His PhD dissertation title: “Rhetoric, Exegesis and Florilegic Structure in Philagathos of Cerami: An Investigation of the Homilies and of the Allegorical Exegesis of Heliodorus’ Aethiopika,” (forthcoming in the Bibliothèque de Byzantion at Peeters, Leuven). He has experience with translating Greek texts into English. Recently, he has contributed English translations, commentaries and notes (55 pages) to a new major publication project, Byzantine Texts on Art and Aesthetics, edited by Foteini Spingou (University of Edinburgh) and Charles Barber (Princeton University) and published by the Cambridge University Press. Mircea has been also trained in Greek Palaeography, first at Central European University with Prof. Niels Gaul, then at the Kapodistrian University of Athens where he was an Erasmus student, and thereafter at the Lincoln College Summer School of Greek Palaeography.

Mihai Grigoraș is a translator (from Latin and Ancient Greek into Romanian) at the „Patristic Books” Department of Basilica Publishing House of the Romanian Patriarchate. He is about to defend his PhD thesis on theophany in John Scott Eriugena at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology, University of Bucharest. He studied Classical Philology and Orthodox Theology at the University of Bucharest and obtained two master degrees in Medieval Studies and Translation Studies at the same University. He followed the courses in Latin palaeography, diplomatics, and text editing organized by The International Federation of Institutes for Medieval Studies (FIDEM) in Rome. He won several short-stay scholarships that allowed him to conduct his research at the University of Hamburg, the University of Lorraine (Nancy), and the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). For five years (2015-2019), he taught classics at the Orthodox Theological Seminary in Bucharest, and in 2017 he trained the Romanian Olympic team for the international Olympiad of Ancient Greek (Viterbo, Italy) where one of his students was awarded. Mihai is currently translating into Romanian the minor treatises on Trinitarian Theology of Saint Gregory of Nyssa.

Mihail-George Hâncu is a Scientific Researcher at the Institute for South-East European Studies of the Romanian Academy. He defended his PhD thesis in Philology in 2018, (University of Bucharest/University of Hamburg) with the thesis The Terminology of Ancient Greek Cosmogonies, published in 2019. He has a BA in Classical Philology (2011), a BA in Serbian and Romanian Philology (2019), an MA in Classical Philology (2013), and an MA in Balkan Cultural Studies (2015). As he became a researcher at the Institute for South-East European Studies in September 2015, he expanded his area of research to South Slavic languages, in particular Serbian and Bulgarian. He currently teaches Old Church Slavonic at the “Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics and Serbian at the Institute for South-East European Studies. Following the completion of his first project at the Institute for South-East European Studies (The Origins and Meaning of the Image of Military Saints Fighting Against a Dragon), he started a new project in 2020, “The Historical Palaea in the Byzantine-Slav Space”, in which he will be comparing the Romanian tradition of this apocryphal text with the South Slavic tradition. He has published various articles (in Romanian, English, Serbian and Bulgarian) on subjects concerning Slavic philology.

Krasimir Ivanov studied in the National high school for ancient languages and cultures “St. Constantine Cyrile the Philosopher” in Sofia, Bulgaria. He graduated his BA studies in classical philology at Sofia University in 2016. He has studied for two years in Academia Vivarium Novum in Rome, Italy. Krasimir is currently a member of the Oxford Latinitas Project. He teaches in the same high school he has graduated and is pursuing his MA degree on ancient history at Sofia University. His main research interests are related to the Roman Republic, related to which he is looking into the reasons that changed Roman society from a small Res publica to the greatest empire in the Mediterranean area.

Andra Jugănaru graduated bachelor and master studies in History and Computer Sciences at the University of Bucharest as well as a master program in Medieval Studies at Central European University in Budapest. At CEU she defended her PhD dissertation titled “Family Double Monasteries in the Fourth and the Fifth Century. An Inquiry into the Theological Roots, Social Context and Early Evolution of an Old Practice” under the supervision of †Marianne Sághy and István Perczel. Now, as a postdoctoral researcher at the Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, she is studying the Cappadocian Fathers’ letter collections using the network theory. She has benefitted from several scholarships, research fellowships and summer schools in Europe (Lyon, Rome, Vienna, Paris, Louvain la Neuve, Dresden, Lund) and at Dumbarton Oaks. She is a member of the Patristic Committee and she is working at the translation of Gregory of Nyssa’s letters to Romanian.

Michail Konstantinou-Rizos is a tutor of Classical, Byzantine and Modern Greek and of Classical and Medieval Latin. He holds a PhD in Byzantine studies from Royal Holloway, University of London, and has recently produced a critical edition of Prochoros Cydones’ (ca. 1330-1369/71) Greek translation of Thomas Aquinas’ Quaestiones disputatae de potentia and Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis, to be published by the Corpus Christianorum – Series Graeca, Thomas de Aquino Byzantinus (Brepols: Turnhout). He also holds a MA in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies from the University of London and a BA in History and Archaeology from the University of Athens. He has participated in a number of research projects transcribing and editing Byzantine and post-Byzantine texts from manuscripts. Since 2016, he is a member of the International Research Project Thomas de Aquino Byzantinus, run by the University of Patras and the University of London.

Alex Mihăilă is associate professor for Old Testament and Biblical Hebrew at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology, University of Bucharest. He is part of a translating team of the Old Testament (New Europe College and Humanitas Publishing House) and the New Testament (Vatopedi Monastery) and published in co-authorship a Biblical Hebrew-Romanian dictionary (2017) and a Hebrew grammar for beginners in Romanian (2020). He earned his PhD in Theology at the University of Iasi (Romania), with a scholarship of EKD in Erlangen and participation in archaeological diggings in Israel. His main interest is the history of the biblical Israel.

Georgi Mitov is a postgraduate student at the University of Sofia (Bulgaria) and a junior researcher at the Institute of Balkan Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. In 2015 he graduated from the National high school for ancient languages and cultures “St. Constantine Cyril the Philosopher” (Sofia, Bulgaria). He holds a BA in History (Mediaeval History) from Sofia University, and he is currently pursuing his MA in Paleoslavic studies at the same university. He specialised in Classical philology at Accademia ‘Vivarium Novum’ (Frascati-Roma, Italy, 2016-2017), and subsequently in Mediaeval history and Byzantine theology at Durham University (UK, 2019-2020). Since 2017 he has been teaching Latin as a part-time teacher at several high schools in Sofia and also during Scholae aestivae linguarum antiquarum in Bulgaria habitae. His main research interests focus on Byzantine cultural studies, Mediaeval Greek and South Slavic literatures (in particular homiletic, hymnographic and patristic texts) and intellectual exchange between Byzantium and the West.

Antoaneta Sabău is a research fellow of the Institute of Ecumenical Research, Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu. She has studied classical philology at the University of Bucharest and Medieval Studies at Central European University, Budapest. She has had research stays at Centre Sevres (Paris), University College Dublin, and Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies, Toronto and has pursued training in Latin palaeography with an Andrew W. Mellon scholarship for the Diploma Program in Manuscript Studies (at the American Academy in Rome and the Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies, Toronto). She holds a PIMS Certificate of Proficiency in Medieval Latin. She has been studying the Latin textual tradition of the Exercitia Spiritualia by Ignatius of Loyola, has been involved in various translation projects and is currently working on Johannes Scotus Eriugena’s translations of Greek fathers. She is preparing the first Romanian translations of Eriugena’s Periphyseon and De praedestinatione. Antoaneta is also a co-founder of the Dan Slusanschi School for Classical and Oriental Languages.

Gheorghe Ovidiu Sferlea is BA in Classics (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca) and Philosophy (Université Paris IV-Sorbonne). Currently Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology, University of Oradea, he is a former fellow of the École Normale Supérieure – rue d’Ulm, Paris, and New Europe College, Bucharest. He earned a PhD in Patristics at École Pratique des Hautes Études-Sorbonne (2010). He was part of the project Monumenta Linguae Daco-Romanorum (the Bible of 1688) and he published a Romanian version of Gregory of Nyssa’s Against Eunomius I as well as several other shorter patristic translations. He is mainly interested in fourth century theological controversies and Gregory of Nyssa’s Byzantine and post-Byzantine Nachleben.

Alin Suciu, was awarded an M.A. title in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (University of Cluj-Napoca), Ph.D. in Religious Studies (Université Laval, Québec), docent in Early Christian Literature and Coptic Christianity (University of Helsinki). Suciu is a Senior Researcher at the Göttingen Academy and a docent of the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki. He is a specialist in the literature and history of the Egyptian Church. Author of The Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon: A Coptic Apostolic Memoir (WUNT I, 370; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017).

Florin George Calian studied Classics and Philosophy at the University of Bucharest. He holds a PhD on Plato’s philosophy from Central European University. He has also a MA in Medieval Studies (CEU, Budapest), and one in Greek and Roman Archeology (University of Bucharest). He had the opportunity through several scholarships to study and conduct research at the Departement für Philosophie of Université Fribourg (Switzerland), Trinity College (University of Oxford), Plato Center (Trinity College Dublin), Tübinger Stift (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen), New Europe College (Bucharest), Robarts Library (Toronto), Department of Incunabula, Old and Precious Books, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Wien). He is currently a research fellow of the Institute of Ecumenical Research, Philosophy and Religious Studies Unit. He is a co-founder of the Dan Slusanschi School for Classical and Oriental Languages.

Daniel Koski is an administrative staff member of the Dan Slușanschi School for Classical and Oriental Languages, handling course registrations, communication with program participants, and marketing concerns. He is a full-time staff member of the Institute for Ecumenical Research, assisting with English-language communications and various administrative tasks. A native of the United States, he has lived in the Holy Land and Europe in recent years, specialising in non-profit and institutional administrative development and support.

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